


spring training

by motorghost



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Baseball, Crushes, Date-yet-not-a-date, Drinking, Flirting, Hanzo's dumb dark past, M/M, McHanzo Week 2020, Mostly Dialogue, Nostalgia, Romance, Secret Crush, Wartime, implied Overwatch team, implied recent omnic attack, just two idiots having a night out to distract from the futility of war, they like-like each other ooooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motorghost/pseuds/motorghost
Summary: Hanzo and Jesse take a short, nighttime excursion to re-live a small slice of Hanzo's youth: baseball training.McHanzo Week 2020: Day 6 (seasons/time)
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 20
Kudos: 113





	spring training

**Author's Note:**

> Something different; playing with ideas of seasonal change and time was fun! Delving into SPORTS of all things. I had to watch videos and everything. Pls applaud my bravery.

The baseball cages down by the waterfront are abandoned, which Jesse says is lucky. Hanzo points out that it's 4am, that the nearby docks smell like every morning's catch for a hundred years, and also the city has just been attacked, but Jesse holds fast to the mythos of luck and goes on and on about how baseball is a sport packed with superstition. He doesn’t use that word—superstition. Hanzo does. But he can’t quite make himself argue his view. Not when Jesse tears open the seal on their whiskey with his teeth and gives him that dangerous grin. He’d rather pretend to be lucky with Jesse than be correct. If only for one night. They've never gone out like this, just the two of them at night. It feels uncharted, but then, most feelings that Jesse inspire in Hanzo are like that.   
  
“Should’ve told me you liked baseball,” says Jesse, testing the artificial turf with his bootheel. Ridiculously-small ponytail bobbing in the salty breeze. “Would’ve done this a long time ago.”   
  
“It’s not as if we had time,” Hanzo replies.   
  
“Now I know you’re a talented enough man to do more than one thing at a time.”   
  
Hanzo snorts, “Then I’d never get anything done,” as he pushes a credit card into the automatic vending station. Two bats arrive from their underground storage unit one at a time, easy as cans of soda.

“Tram wasn’t as deserted as I thought it’d be,” remarks Jesse, taking his aluminum bat for a few test swings. “After all that?”   
  
“They’ve been through this many times,” says Hanzo. “If they hid in their homes every time an omnic attacked, the city would collapse.”   
  
They play rock-paper-scissors and Jesse wins. He goes up to bat and Hanzo stands off to the side, behind the fence, inspecting the gunslinger’s form. The whiskey is cheap but goes down better than Hanzo thought it would. The superstitious part of him blames the fresh, newly-spring air. 

“Wish we could’a done more,” Jesse mutters.   
  
Hanzo makes a noise of agreement, but mutters back, “There was nothing more we could’ve done.”   
  
“I know.” The first ball flies. Jesse swings and misses. “Damn.”   
  
“When was the last time you played?”   
  
“Overwatch company team.”   
  
Hanzo snorts. “Really?”   
  
“Naw,” Jesse grins, “Everyone was way too busy for that kinda thing.” Another miss. “Didn’t play much as a kid, either. Soccer was more my thing.”   
  
Hanzo blinks at him. “So you don’t even remember?”   
  
“Nope,” grins Jesse, taking another huge swing and missing, this time by a country mile.

“Did you play at  _ all?” _

“Maybe.”   
  
“You said that you did.”   
  
_ “You _ said you did,” Jesse chuckles, “Then  _ I _ suggested we go find some cages.”   
  
“You—” Hanzo growls and takes a swig from the bottle of Jack. “I don’t remember it that way.”   
  
“Well, I ain’t the kind to shirk from trying something new.” He looks at Hanzo from over his shoulder, his grin as crooked as his batting posture.   
  
Hanzo watches Jesse whiff two more times before he gets up, pauses the machine, and approaches with his hands open in offering. “Allow me?”   
  
Jesse nods, is compliant as Hanzo arranges his arms. “Make your stance wider. I could push you over with one hand.”   
  
“This ain’t a combat situation, Han!” Jesse laughs.   
  
“It is similar,” argues Hanzo. “Gather your weight onto your right foot before you swing. Do not hack at the ball. Let your hips lead your strike.”

He takes Jesse’s hips in his hands and shifts them in the correct direction. The gunslinger grunts, resisting, then eases and goes where Hanzo leads. “Like that?” Jesse repeats the hip motion.   
  
“Correct,” Hanzo breathes out.The gunslinger’s hips are wide and solid under his hands, warm even through his denim. He has a hard time keeping his eyes off of where they curve outward around his back pockets. “Tuck this elbow closer when you move to swing. Keep the barrel low.” His hands move around Jesse to take his hands, which proves difficult, since Jesse is longer in limb; Hanzo really has to reach just to hold his wrists, but he manages, pressing into Jesse firmly from behind. “Follow through in one fluid arc.” He guides Jesse’s grip on the bat through the space until it’s pointing in its final position at the glittering city skyline beyond the wide, dark bay.   
  
Jesse doesn’t make a sound, even after they’ve performed the action three times. Hanzo suddenly notices the sweat on the back of Jesse’s exposed neck and extricates himself immediately, clearing his throat. “Do you see?”   
  
“Yeah,” says Jesse, a little too loud. “Uhh. Feels good. Sounds good, I mean. I get it.”

Hanzo lets him try several more times until he finally connects. The victorious shout from Jesse, his cocky little grin as he turns to meet Hanzo’s eyes, is more than enough to make Hanzo smile in return. Enough to make him feel no different than the satisfied sophomore after the first practice of spring training, with all of life before him and a perfect day behind. 

“My turn,” Hanzo says when Jesse’s peacocking nearly gets him sniped in the head by another ball.

“Yeah, show me how it’s done, cap,” Jesse grins, smacking Hanzo on the shoulder as they switch places, passing the bottle of Jack like a relay baton.

Hanzo stretches by rotating his hips and shoulders left and right, bending forward with little bounces to ease his pelvic joints. He’s a little buzzed, but not enough to be sloppy. “I used to captain my high school baseball team.” 

“That’s funny,” Jesse says, distant.

Hanzo rises and turns. “Funny, is it?”

Jesse blinks. “I mean, interesting.” He grumbles to himself, crossing his arms and leaning on the light post. “I mean, it figures.”

Hanzo snorts, looks at his bat with a private, satisfied smile. He twists at his hips again just to make his sweater ride up, just in case Jesse is still looking. The tip of his bat starts up the machine and he cracks the first ball straight down the line. The gunslinger whistles. “Nice one.”   
  
“Not exactly. The pitcher would’ve easily caught it.” Hanzo raises the bat and swings again. This time, the ball arcs wide to left field. “I played before then, with Genji and some of the brothers. High school was my first official team.”   
  
“Surprised you had the time, with all the… other shit.”   
  
By ‘other shit,’ Jesse is implying Hanzo’s entire life: martial arts training, schooling, and shadowing his father. The tip of Hanzo’s bat thuds metallic on home plate, then he raises it again; somehow, even twenty years later, he feels as though he is pushing his luck. “My father allowed it because I thoroughly outlined the benefits of captaining a baseball team. Leadership skills, focus, form.” 

“Sounds like you,” Jesse drawls, “Maybe I’d’ve gotten that company team if I’d made my case to Reyes. But he probably would’ve made a crack about how I’d see more benefit if I shot the balls out of the sky,” he adds with a chuckle.

Hanzo misses the next two strikes, curses under his breath. Something is tightening in his shoulders. “My father came to see a game for the first time in my sophomore year. The final of the season. When we won, he told me it was time to stop.” He hits the next so hard that it makes the fence rattle with a loud crash. “Things became… my life became much busier after that.”   
  
Jesse doesn’t say anything, but makes a sound like he understands. Hanzo knows that’s impossible—even Genji, who was at his shoulder for most of his youth, couldn’t understand—but also, he is tired of feeling misunderstood. He wonders what it would be like to take responsibility for that.   
  
It’s all very distracting. When he taps the machine off and turns, Jesse is mid-swig, throat pumping down a large gulp of whiskey. “My turn again?”   
  
The tension has radiated all the way to Hanzo’s fingertips, rendering them numb. His jaw is clenched. “I think we should stop.”   
  
“Yeah?” Jesse comes closer. Hanzo hears a hateful note of concern in his voice. "Had enough?"   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Wanna get on the train and see what else is out there?” Now Jesse sounds jovial. Adding a hint of levity, “Maybe see if the ramen here is as good as Hanamura’s?”   
  
Hanzo allows himself a private smile. He is trying to open himself back up to old opportunities he thought he’d missed, but Jesse is all new. An uncharted space. As if sensing the oncoming springtime on a suddenly-warm breeze, he feels drawn towards whatever unseen chapter the cowboy seems to hum. “Lead the way, Jesse.”   
  
A rough-pitched chuckle. “Still ain’t used to you using my name,” he rumbles.   
  
“Get used to it,” Hanzo retorts.   
  
They return their bats and head back towards the station. On the tram again, high above the quiet, tree-lined suburbs, Hanzo presses his luck. He faces the window and leans back against Jesse, who is holding onto one of the overhead straps for balance. There's a pause, then a metallic arm comes up around his waist to balance him.

The gunslinger chuckles, amused but not nervous. “Comfy?”

Hanzo puts his own arm over Jesse’s and lays it there, settling the back of his head against the other man’s collarbone. Rattling along thin steel cables but steady as Jesse’s heartbeat echoing through his back. “For now."

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!!! <3


End file.
